


Empty Spaces and Tiny Traces

by NellDaie



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Italian Mafia, One Shot, Orphans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-01 22:22:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12714003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NellDaie/pseuds/NellDaie
Summary: Vanderwood backstory. There's romance mentioned and the archive warning will apply but it's only mentioned- so it definitely won't be too graphic.





	Empty Spaces and Tiny Traces

Vanderwood remembered the first time he killed a man. He could recall clearly the scent of gun powder in the air and the residue staining his hand ever so slightly. More than anything, however, he remembered Celine's face. That was the moment he said goodbye forever. His hand was shaking- barely- but it was there. He sat down next to the man that was now nothing more than a corpse. He felt the heavy beating of his heart reminding him that, somehow, he was still human. He traced shapeless shadows dancing on the wall from cars passing by on the street outside. He indulged in his private thoughts of her again. In here- in his mind- no one could ever touch her. 

He used to have a first and last name. Luca di Conti- a name that had been thrown away and forsaken for a small mistake he made once upon a time. His parents died when he was much too young, and his aunt had taken him in. They lived in a small town on the island of Sicily. His aunt was kindly and endearing. She would make him clothes and tell him stories about his parents. She only told him once- on her death bed- why and how they died. The mob owned that town, and every town around it. His parents saw something they shouldn't have. This was one of the earliest things he learned- when it came to the mob, there was no forgiveness...no mercy. His aunt left him the house- barely anything more than a shack- but it was his. 

He remembered  _zietta_ begging him to find his own path. "Luca, forge forward. There is something for you, but you have to find it. It cannot find you." Such profound words from someone that was 2 inches from death. When the grim reaper did come for her, he dragged her body outside. He spent all night digging a grave for her. It couldn't be too shallow, he had been taught. His tiny muscles worked the ground until he was satisfied. He guiltily pushed her body into it- wishing he would have given her a better funeral. But here he was again- alone. Everyday he felt the impending depression suffocating him. He got by with odd jobs here and there, but there only so many jobs a 10 year old could do. But just as he had promised, he kept forging his path. It was a sweltering Summer day, with the hint of the olive groves to the South drifting on tendrils of wind, when he met Celine. She was so tiny that he thought a stray dog had met an untimely end next to the forgotten dirt road that led into the village. 

He approached her, and was shocked to find a tiny girl covered in bruises and dried tears. He picked her up, and her minuscule form only weighed him down slightly. He took her to the small home and laid her down in auntie's bed. He poured water on her face and scrubbed the tiny rocks and debris out of her wounds. She opened her eyes, and they were the most beautiful green he had ever seen. They were like the leaves on the trees he would climb when he was allowed to be a child- it was a natural emerald sheen with the hint of bright, all- encompassing light beyond. The moment ended when she screamed suddenly, her brown, sun bleached hair was matted and quickly drawing further away from him. She retreated to a corner like a feral kitten that had forgotten how to cry for its mother.

He approached her as if she were exactly that- with hands outstretched and kind, gentle words. Slowly, she unfurled her ball-like form and stared. "My name is Luca. What's yours?" He asked. She answered with an accent. He learned that she was French, and 11 years old. He also learned that she had been abandoned on this island after the man who bought her ceased to enjoy the ever-growing listlessness in her eyes when he forced his indignities upon her tiny frame. She had no family left, and was found and abused by this man who pretended she was his daughter in more scrutinizing company. "It's okay." She told him, "I needed food, and he gave me that. It was all I could ask for, because I'm still alive." He wondered angrily why children were forced to decide those things. Why had life decided that they would be the ones trudging through all of the unfortunate garbage that accumulated in the world? He didn't tell her this, he only listened, grateful that he wasn't alone anymore. 

They turned the shack into a home. Celine was good at finding wildflowers to decorate with, and she had the greatest skill Luca had ever seen. Before she was orphaned, she had been taught to dance. And he enjoyed watching her balance delicately on the tips of her toes while a song that only she knew played on repeat in her head. He wasn't sure how it was supposed to look, but he knew what he felt, and it felt like he was a bird with a broken wing watching another take flight. It was maddening, sad and liberating all at once. When paired with her smile, he felt like he could drift forever in this place with her. Like a snowglobe, he wanted this world encased, protected forever and placed on the highest shelf above the reach of clumsy hands. 

They would sleep together in auntie's bed. After a couple years living in this pattern of placidity, they had kissed one night. It was sudden, and it was Celine that pressed her lips to his. It was her that made his heart ache with the sweetest throb. He realized he love her, and maybe always had. She told him that she had. Her hand had reached out- trembling and unsure- to clasp his tightly. Their fingers intertwined between them, like a vow had been made and sanctified. "Promise me you won't leave, Luca." Her eyes stared at his and bored into his very existence. Even years after he became Vanderwood, her eyes from that time would still pop into his head at the most unexpected times. He promised her. It would always be like this. 

"If you ever think you lost me, " he had told her once, "just dance. Dance really loud and I'll hear the pounding of your feet. And I'll find you, no matter what." She smiled at that. He didn't know at the time how unfaithful that promise was. But he had no idea, that when he was 14, he would take a shortcut to their makeshift home late after his job at the bakery and come across dark men doing dangerous things. He didn't know what they were doing, and when he realized that it was a corpse they were holding, they had seen him. His legs worked reflexively to run. His mind screamed not to run home. They couldn't find Celine. So he ran back into town, diving through alleys and dipping into corners. A hand jerked him suddenly, and he was certain that was it for him. He wondered how Celine would find out, if she would be okay without him. 

"Mob after ya?" The gruff older man asked. He was pinching and evaluating his body carefully. Luca nodded, unsure where he had suddenly strayed. "I got a place you can go, but you have to go tonight. If ya got family- no goodbyes. They don't exist anymore." Luca started to object, his head filled to the brim with thoughts of the lost little girl he found so many years ago. "If ya want to live, you'll come with me." He thought long and hard. If he returned to their home, Celine would be in danger. The only option that was left, he truly felt, was to disappear. 

So that's what he did. 

And that's why he was here, watching the very essence of life slowly drain from the wound in this man's head. He wondered if Celine kept dancing, if she had children of her own, and if she ever thought about that boy she met one Summer day. He stood up and clicked some buttons on his cell phone to let the agency know that he was successful. As he walked slowly into his faceless life, he dared one more memory. It was so clear, he could paint a picture if he wanted to. She was twirling, her hair whirling about her head and catching rays of sunshine so that it looked like halo. The dust was kicked up by her rambunctious footwork, and it swam in the sunbeams- drenching her in the ethereal beauty that was beyond her years and now, so completely, beyond his grasp. 


End file.
